jimmarchi1's Reviews

a classic that's maybe not as great as the mutron octave divider

to me the mutron octave circuit is the gold standard of 70s analog octave effect... that said the EHX multiplexer tracks poorly and has a relally clangy unantrul timber that's great as more of a splatty and ring moddy special effect sometimes. I'd still like to have a mutron but they're pricey thanks to neil young. I ave an old one of these and like many of my ehx pedals I don't like using them much because of the boxes and switches. this is another tonesucker too... but when recording its got a certain sumthin' sumthin'. for something analog but more hifi ona budget try an arion octave from the 80s . The plastic case is no flimsier than the old EHX sheet metal boxes and the arion sounds really good, tracks great... but as a psycho-grade special effect the multiplexer is super fun. Velcroey bass and claging high harmonics galore are in there when you get the high filter and blend setup right with the sub engaged. Too polite? try playing some doublestops instead of single note runs. The pog is comparatively polite. More useful? probably. But not to me.

I got this for electrnic music but tis fun on guitar too

this thing is insane when screwing with it on synths and samplers. its just whack. I enver thought I would like it on guitar but it has its moments as a guitar effect too. I haven't explored all tis options in any way but I really like the SL-20. Sound quality is really solid for a boss effect. Buffer's not too offensive to my ear. Sounds good and it does a million varieties of whacked out shit to your music. like a lot of EQD stuff its uses are pretty esoteric and for all but the most experimental noise-band people it will be a bad investment unless they're doing a lot of studio work or home recording where crazy, rhythmic gimmick effects are needed.

sousdn like an ep3 with the echo off

full 22v power supply maestro ep3 preamp with NOS TIS58 jfet for gain. Has the bright Mk1 voicing to my ear, though I don't think Tony Krank says either way what he went for. Accept no charge pumped 18v substitutes. Cheap. udner $100 and better than the competition. Will tickle you if you're into the Page EVH Ep3 thing. Loves non-master marshalls, oranges, hiwatts, laneys, tryanors, sound cities.... you name it. if its EL34s or KT88s fronted by a buch of 12ax7s and a simple toenstack hen this will give it that 70s ahrdrock bazinga... Handles fuzzes and wahs well for page or ronson type stuff.

very good if you like this kinda thing

I vastly prefer this to the boss OC2, it tracks very well and has a nice synthy sound to both octaves like the boss does when you get it behaving right. The MOC1 is a zero hassle pedal as long as you stay monophonic. However, boss owns it for build quality. this is an effect that gets turned on and off a lot and the wear and tear on the pasltic enclosure is rough. Mine's beat to hell wherease all my boss pedals are in great shape no matter how old they are. At least it has a better switch then a soundtank though. I could probably ditch all my non-fuzz octaves and just get a foxxroxx octron if I cared that much...

the grandaddy of all didoe clipping distortions

this little box was an ancient product and I suspect it was the first commercial effect that utilized back to back diodes tog round to produce distortion... basically a primitive distortion+! It ahs its own charm at times and it was pretty groundbreaking when new I'm sure however its the least cool of all the Armstrong belt-clip effects. I don't know where I got one and I don't know if its an original model. These have been RIed a lot. I really wanna get my hands ona green ringer octave.... I love that kind of shit.

ugh

this eliminates hum but it also eliminates dynamics, high treble and low bass.... use at your own risk. I suspect cheap isolation transofrmers are to blame. Perhaps if I opened it up and replaced the stock ones with jesnens.

not much to dislike in the sound, but a hassle

this does a lot of weird gimmick echo simualtions thata re very cool... the 'strum' feature to set tempo is pretty solid. Not worth getting the X4 version to put in the MIDI system though. I use this guy once in a blue and mostly on syths for the whackier settings. On synths you have to set the tempo by plugging a guitar in and swiping the quarter notes, then you have to sue the guitar lead for your synth because if you switch cables the pedal powers down and reverts to the delay time's setting when powered back up. Small complaints for such a unique device that's also toenprint enabled and cheap as all get out.

its a tiny crybaby

I tend to repfer voxes ins tock, affordable wahs, but this guy was so small and cute I decided to buy it.... it sounds like a big crybaby. I am not the best wah wah player but I can say I am no worse at wah wah on a small treadle versus a full size one. These are spit cheap and worth the investment if you're building a small pedalboard. I got this because it was my only pedal on the floor besides my midi controller and I wanted it to pack up into a guitar case. More mid-forward then the Hendrix wah, more conventional sounding then a morley but not as aggressive and mid-forward as the V847 I used to have. Totally passable. I'll bet every other crybaby is better, but not smaller or cheaper ;-)

I couldn't seem to get this thing to work for me due to the tiny size. After finding the voicing switch i got a sound I liked but I just never managed to wah effortlessly n this little fella. In the market for a full size wah that has that Cream sound.... I know, tall order.

you'll enver know you need this until you use it

this is a loop box for sandwiching modualtiona dn delay effects that don't have a big input trim between a gain device and a guitar amp. It has other uses when wired up unconventionally though... the device is fully passive achieving the gain reduction and gain recovery via custom matched Lehle transformers. its really transparent and will keep you from overloading your old delay and modulation boxes. Very useful for rangemaster and other 'always on' boost users who want to use delay effects in font of an amp or in a hi-z, pre-out-poweramp-in effects loop like on ampeg v series amps, matchlesses or dumble clones. Particularly useful in those amps when you're dealing with a matchless/vox/orange type post phase ivnerter master volume arrangement where the dirt comes after the preamp but you need more repamp gain then the gear in the FX loop can handle in order tog et the phase inverter to distort. The RB will even allow you to use a compressor subtley on these amps whereas usually a healthy amount of preamp gain will be slamming the compressor's detection circuit even if tis not clipping. The handiest box ever.

cleanest buffer for long cable runs

unity gain op amp buffer utilizing all fancy parts including a cork sniffer burr brown IC... very transparent. I copied this form a pedal someone built me. I think I sold that one because I didn't think I needed a fancy paint job. This is no longer in my rig, but its handy in the studio. very easy build.

very colored boost

the quintessential homebrew boost, dual jfets provide crazy harmonic content and compression but stay clean.... willa dd some 'britishness' to any clean tone and add extra harmonic character to amp overdrive at minimal levels of amplification. Easy to build! 2 of these in series with big muff tone control between maks a brown sound in a box mark 1... so many pedals derived from that genius idea including the Catalinbread dirty little secret and the Zvex box of rock (which substitutes SHOs for the AMZs, but if you mix those upyou can get really interesting results... I think that the CBread WIIO pedal did that, mixed the jfet and mosfest boosts tages together with a 2 band tonestack like a CP103 hiwatt, anyway...)

Jack Oram? genius! Minibooster? a must have.

ampeg's fender blender... sort of

I have a reissue, its spot on.... this is a way voer the top octave fuzz in the style of the great Japanese fuzzes like the superfuzz, standard fuzz etc.... tonally its more in the fender blender camp but tis a tad more controllable and ahs less controls to mess with your head. I forgot I had this until recently.

wild beast

this is a BYOC tonebender board with correct Mullard transistors in it... sounds like a mk2 should. Over the top a lot of the time, but does a great Page with an EL34 amp and les paul. This circuit does not clean up into an OD the same way a fuzz face or vox tonebender will but ti does clean up some. It can be rbight and spitty or dark and wooly often just absed on how ahrd you play. Its too much fuzz much of the time. The 2 knob mk3 and burns buzzaround are more controlled and have an interesting tone control implementation but the mk2 has the edge on those 2 circuits for all out tone when you want to go way over the top. this circuit is really picky about transistors. Get a trio of pre-sorted transistors from small bear electronics.

I always come abck to this fuzz

low gain silicon fuzz face circuit with output volume mod everyone does and modern, low noise transistors. Splits the difference between BC108 and AC128 loaded faces. Dark, but not too dark, no stability issues. Assembled on terminal strips mounted in the bud box.

an easy build with 3 great boosts in a small enclosure

I sued a friend's triboost extensively on an album and enjoyed all 3 modes. I had owned a rangemaster clone ebfore but I really found that the BYOC hit the rangemaster sound in my head better then the one I used to have. So yeah, I got the kit and built this. Mode one is a dallas rangemaster (like I metnioned), I threw an actual Mullard transistor in mine (OC44?) because my friend had a bunch that were leaky enough but I don't think that the brand of germanium transistor makes a huge difference.... this kit just sounds REALLY right. The thing with a rangemaster is the input and output imepdances are all wonky so its more of an upper mid boost. The impedence drag on your pickup rolls off the high treble and then the boosted signal has a cool interaction with the amp's input. You have to use the rangemaster with NO other effects to get the real sound, otherwise use a different boost. Youc an sub a silicon transistor in this section and tweak the circuit tog et a Brian may booster. I have some dedicated at boosters though. Simialr but different. Mode 2 is the EHX LPB1, a primitive bipolar transistor boost that imparts a lot of color to your sound. marshalls love the LPB1. Mode 3 is a Zvex Sho mosfet boost. Everyone lvoes the show and all its hi-z glory, tons of gain on tap of course, but the treble sheen due to the extremely high input impedence is what makes the SHO circuit shine. Good for driving dark amps without sacrificing bass. It willg vie you the sheen and retain your thump whereas the rangemaster gives you the cut and more cut through the band mix. Eah one fo tehse oosts is very colored and each one hughlights different frequencies and adds different harmonic content. Any idiot whoc an solder can make this. I think that they discontinued the tri-boost and made it the quad boost adding in a keely katana which is a dual jfet affair that's like an improved DOD bifet pre.

a classic

the micro amp is the classic op-amp booster... it ahs a sound we all know... its not quite transparent, it imparts that little bit of the 70s and 70s to your tone when you want that. Can double as a passable buffer/line driver with the gain way down.

underrated 80s speaker

these were standard equipment in Laneys and some Hiwatts in the 80s. They're not loved like the Medusa but they're more like a 70s Fane to my ear. Sensitivity is close to a greenback for pairing... a very full sounding speaker. Balancd tone, smooth overdrive.... to me the Medusa has too much handling and is more like an EVM12L. Good for someone. This guy is more my bag. Also pairs well with some vintage JBL Alnicos that have lower sensitivity ratings. I was using these exensively for a while but now I just have one of them in a cab I don't use much pired with a JBL. They're pretty loud watt for watt with a lot projection and can be fussy to record at home.

not authentic but still good

this speaker has more wattage handling than a vintage one and it has an extended bandwidth... I really like the Jensen reissues for themselves. Want vintage tone with a warranty? get a weber. I recommend everyone try the Italian-made Jensen reissues though. They all sound great. A solid ceramic with the Jensen upper mids but MORE of everything else, even when pushed.

good needle tuner

this is my intonation tuner when I'm doing set ups.... always ahs been. I prefer it to strobe tuners unlike a lot of techs. Worth seeking out.

really good

these are really good rack tuners that even the most myopic guitarist can use! every studio had one for a while. has a good buffer included too.